View full size Elliot Njus/The Oregonian Garry Killgore, a track and cross-country coach at Linfield College, leads a morning exercise group using shoes and buoyancy suits made by his company, AQx Sports. Killgore, who has trained Linfield athletes in the water for 21 years, says the company he founded in 2004 has picked up a number of elite teams and athletes as customers.
Linfield track coach's company takes to deep-water training
Garry Killgore's company, AQx Sports, makes suits and shoes for deep-water running.

McMINNVILLE -- Garry Killgore is very familiar with the story of Bill Bowerman, the Oregon track coach who designed Nike's prototype athletic shoe.

His admiration for the iconic coach was evident on a recent Tuesday during a workout at the Linfield College pool, where his copy of "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon" sat on a counter nearby. He had loaned it out and had just gotten it back.

"I would never pretend to be Bowerman, and I would never want to be," said Killgore, who coached track and cross-country at the McMinnville college.

But he has -- somewhat reluctantly -- become Oregon's latest coach-cum-businessman.

His company, AQx Sports, sells suits and shoes for deep-water running. It's exactly what it sounds like -- running while bobbing in the water, which provides resistance without the impact of running on land.

The products are growing in popularity among athletic elites -- golfer Tiger Woods and quarterback Peyton Manning have tried them out -- but some of his biggest fans join him at the pool every Tuesday and Thursday. Killgore calls it his "breakfast club."

Together, they jump into the water in AQx buoyancy suits and water shoes, then set about the list of drills Killgore has scrawled on a whiteboard.

The suits keep participants in an upright running position in the water, and the shoes are fitted with fins to add resistance and extra-grippy soles to allow running in the water, as well as a slippery pool deck.

They run laps in the pool, then climb out of the water for a set of pushups, lifts with a weighted ball or a lap around the pool deck. And then they jump back in the water again for more.

"I feel exhausted," said Carly Moran, a new Linfield volleyball coach and first-timer at the workout. "I know that I've worked every single muscle in my body in the last hour."

Killgore had trained his track and cross-country teams in the water since he started at Linfield 21 years ago. Today, all Linfield athletes use AQx training.

He developed much of the theory behind the shoes and the suits while working on his doctorate in biomechanics. But he says the company wouldn't have worked without his years of experience as a runner.

Killgore started running at 13. While he was in high school, his father was laid off from his mill job, so Killgore and his oldest brother -- one of four -- took night jobs to help support the family. He fit his runs in before and after school.

"It was a release," he said. "I could run away."

Running got Killgore into Oregon State University, though he left during his freshman year -- right after the cross-country season ended -- and worked in a construction job for a few months before enrolling at Linn Benton Community College to pursue an associate's degree in physical education.

He transferred back to OSU, earning bachelor's and master's degrees, then taught physical education in public schools before taking a position at Linfield.

Killgore sustained a number of injuries during his competitive years, which he said could have been avoided.

"Many national champs coach for performance first," he said. "You ought to be protecting (athletes') health, first and foremost."

At Linfield, he started training athletes in the pool, helped by an athletic director open to Killgore's unconventional approach.

"One of the impediments is that people have a lot of preconceived notions about what's OK in the pool and what is not OK in the pool," Killgore said. "The powers that be in the aquatics realm (will) tell you can't do this and you can't do that. It's not can't. It's can, but with proper modifications."

The results, he says, are in the numbers. His athletes have a stress fracture injury rate of less than 1 percent. Nationwide, that number is between 4 and 14 percent, and elite college track programs can have rates as high as 35 percent.

Other universities have embraced AQx equipment, as well as a growing roster of elite athletes, including a dozen NFL teams and a dozen NBA teams. Portland Trail BlazerGreg Oden used the equipment to rehabilitate in 2007.

Guido Van Ryssegem, an athletic trainer and coordinator of the recreation center at OSU, first saw the equipment during a demonstration put on by Killgore.

"At that moment, I just fell in love with the equipment and the methodology behind it," he said.

Now, he uses AQx equipment with about 75 percent of people who come to him, many for rehabilitation after injuries, but some who just want to train or lose weight.

Tim Flora, a sports chiropractor who owns a clinic in McMinnville, joined the morning workouts at Killgore's invitation in November.

"I thought I was in shape before I started," he said. "When I first started, I was dogging it bad."

Flora has since joined AQx's unpaid advisory board. His patients -- including many Linfield athletes -- have used the products.

"I've had athletes that we were able to keep in some form of conditioning while they were still healing" from an injury, he said. "Without that kind of equipment, the suit and the shoes, we wouldn't be able to keep them in training."

He said the exercise is also ideal for cross-training and can be adjusted for different levels of fitness.

"I think it's got great potential," he said. "It's the right thing for a tremendous amount of athletic endeavors."

The company makes about $12,000 a month from selling the shoes and buoyancy suits -- enough to pay four employees, including Killgore's wife, Lisa, who handles customer service for the company. Trainers certified by the company also receive commissions for what they sell.

Killgore's grand vision for deep-water running isn't limited to athletes. He also sees it as a means to lower obesity rates and help people overcome obstacles to staying fit. He's worked with a teen whose leg was amputated and fitted with a prosthetic, and his students have worked with a man with Parkinson's disease.

"It's little to do with the elite athletes," he said. "It's actually meant to give back. That's all."